Welcome back to my ongoing Hive series, where I slowly but surely mentally prepare myself for the impending doom—I mean, the glorious milestone—of turning 50. Since I was born in the vintage year of 1976, we are currently living in 2026, which means the math is getting alarmingly undeniable.
Today’s therapy session revolves around a topic that perfectly illustrates the generational divide: transport. Specifically, how we teenagers got from point A to point B between 1988 and 1994, compared to the pampered, electrified, heavily padded youth of today. Looking back, I’m honestly surprised my generation made it to adulthood with all our limbs intact.
Let’s take a trip down memory lane, preferably without seatbelts.
The BMX Woods and The Rite of Passage
Before we even had to commute anywhere serious, our primary mode of transport was the legendary BMX. Back then, we practically lived in the woods. We would take our bikes off-road, build our own dirt tracks, construct sketchy ramps out of stolen pallets, and launch ourselves into the air. It was pure bliss. Today’s kids barely even know what a forest looks like unless they are chopping down virtual trees in Minecraft.
But then came the ultimate rite of passage. Right before you went to high school, you had your "plechtige communie" (Solemn Communion). And what was the ultimate gift for stepping into young adulthood? A giant, heavy, incredibly uncool herenfiets (a traditional men's city bike). Suddenly, you went from doing sick jumps in the mud to hauling a massive metal frame to school every day.
Muscle Power vs. Ugly Fatbikes
Let’s get one thing straight: when I was a teenager, biking was a purely mechanical activity powered entirely by carbohydrates, teenage angst, and sheer willpower. If the wind was blowing against you—which, by some defiance of physics, it always was, in both directions—you just had to pedal harder.
Today, the concept of a "bicycle" has been entirely hijacked by electricity. Teenagers in 2026 casually zoom past me uphill at 25 kilometers per hour, sitting upright, barely moving their legs, and definitely not breaking a sweat. And we need to address the elephant in the room: those electric fatbikes. They are, without a doubt, incredibly, undeniably ugly. They look like a mountain bike and a tractor had an illegitimate child. Add the electric scooters littered across every sidewalk, and the youth of today are just hovering around like sci-fi characters.
And let’s talk about the absolute drama of cycling in the dark. Today, kids press a tiny button and get a blinding LED beam. They don't even know how to manually pump up a tire anymore, let alone operate vintage lighting. If it rained or got dark in our day, we had to engage the dreaded bottle dynamo. You clicked that little wheel against your tire, and suddenly, pedaling required 50% more physical strength. It felt like you were dragging a grand piano behind you, all to produce the pathetic, flickering yellow glow of a dying firefly.
The Monday Morning Taco Wheel
Speaking of bikes, I have a classic 90s story for you. Back in the day, my dad didn't drink very often, but when he did, he made it count. Now, back then, police breathalyzers and alcohol checks were practically non-existent. Still, my parents had some common sense: if dad was planning to drink, my mom would either drive, or my dad would take the bicycle to the pub.
One Monday morning, I walked out of the house, grabbed my backpack, and got ready to cycle to school. I walked up to my bike and stopped dead in my tracks. The front wheel was completely mangled. It was bent out of shape, folded entirely in half like a metallic taco.
Apparently, my dad had decided to take my bike to the pub the night before. Judging by the state of the front wheel, the ride back home did not go exactly as planned. He never fully explained which ditch or lamppost he fought, but my bike was the ultimate casualty.
Ironically, while we laugh about the lack of rules back then, there is a sobering modern truth to this: statistics show that our generation—the Gen Xers who survived the 80s and 90s—are sadly the ones getting caught the most at police alcohol checkpoints today. I guess some old habits die hard.
The Lawless Backseat
When we weren't destroying our bikes, we were in the family car. Modern cars in 2026 are autonomous safety pods with lane-assist, blind-spot monitoring, and twelve airbags.
Back in my day? Cars were essentially metal tin cans powered by explosive liquid, and passenger capacity was treated as a highly optional suggestion, much like safety. Need to get a party of six teenagers to a birthday bash or the local swimming pool? No problem, we only needed one car. We just piled as many kids as humanly possible onto the backseat. You had people sitting on laps, squished against the windows, and probably one poor soul folded into the footwell.
Wearing a seatbelt in that human game of Tetris was practically unheard of. When your dad took a sharp corner, the entire pile of kids simply slid across the vinyl seats like a collective human hockey puck. If the car crashed, you were the crumple zone. We didn't have airbags; we had our mother's right arm reflexively shooting out across our chest when she slammed on the brakes.
But the absolute pinnacle of vehicular madness happened when it snowed. And back then, it actually snowed properly.
When the streets turned white, we partook in what I now realize was one of the most delightfully dangerous activities ever conceived by mankind: tying a sled to a car's tow bar (the trusty trekhaak). Oh yes, we actually did this. Someone’s dad would tie a flimsy sled to the back of the car with a piece of garage rope. You would sit on it, inches from the icy asphalt, breathing in raw exhaust fumes, while the car drifted through the snowy neighborhood streets.
It was pure, unadulterated fun. But let’s be honest: if you tried to do that today in 2026, the police would surround your car in five minutes. You’d make national news, a SWAT team would be deployed, and Child Protective Services would be knocking on your door before the snow even melted.
In-Car Entertainment: Second-Hand Smoke and Racing Raindrops
While we were squished together in the back of that car, fighting for legroom, what did we actually do for entertainment? Today, a family road trip looks like a mobile Apple Store. Every kid in the backseat has their own screen, noise-canceling headphones, and a direct 5G connection to TikTok. It's a silent, climate-controlled VIP lounge.
Back in the late 80s and early 90s, in-car entertainment meant staring out the window and betting on which two raindrops would reach the bottom of the glass first. If you were incredibly lucky, you had a Walkman. But God forbid the car hit a pothole, because your mixtape would aggressively skip, or worse, the cassette tape would get eaten by the machine, forcing you to carefully wind the ribbon back in with a pencil.
And let's not forget the atmosphere. Climate control meant rolling down the window manually with a plastic crank that required serious bicep strength. But often, the windows stayed firmly rolled up while our parents casually chain-smoked in the front seats. You would arrive at soccer practice smelling like a mid-century jazz lounge, coughing your lungs out, but absolutely no one batted an eye. It was just the smell of a standard Tuesday commute.
Surviving and Thriving
Looking back from the vantage point of an almost-50-year-old, I wouldn't trade those memories for anything. Sure, modern transport is safer, warmer, and significantly less exhausting. But there was a certain wild freedom in the analog transport of our youth. We earned our destination, whether it was by sweating over the pedals with a heavy dynamo, building BMX jumps in the woods, or surviving a high-speed sled ride behind a family sedan.
So, here’s to turning 50. I might need one of those electric bikes eventually to keep up with the youth, but at least I promise I will never, ever buy one of those ugly fatbikes.
What was your wildest transport memory from your teenage years? Did you ever survive the 'trekhaak' sled ride? Drop a comment below and let me know I’m not the only one who survived the 90s!